Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 80.djvu/522

518

skeletons and mounted specimens of the mammals will be housed in the second story of the first building on Nineteenth Street, the third floor of which is given over to the large collection of birds. In the connecting wing of the third floor will be housed the entomological department, where over a million specimens will be kept in fireproof metal cases, free from dust and moth. The fourth floor of the Race Street building will house the fine exhibition of shells, while the rest of the fourth floor of the buildings will be given over to the very complete working rooms of the scientific staff.

Within the last twenty years, under the presidency of Dr. S. G. Dixon, from an institution largely supported by voluntary membership, the academy has become an endowed institution with an annual income which maintains its work. No state aid has been granted to the academy for maintenance, but in view of the fact that it is the repository of the state geological collections, of very great value, within the last few years generous appropriations have been made for rebuilding, the space in the new buildings of the academy more than quadrupling the space in the old greenstone building in which so much work was accomplished for the advancement of science.

The hands of death have fallen heavily on our scientific men during the past month. When, earlier in the year Professor Brush died, we realized that, however great the grief may be, it is the way of nature for one who has passed his eightieth year and completed his life's work. Rear Admiral Melville, too, died full of years and honor. But the other deaths have been of men in mid-career, who go leaving unfinished the tasks which they only could do. These are Professors Rotch and Sanger, of Harvard University; Professors Montgomery and Spangler, of the University of Pennsylvania; Professor Smith, of Rutgers College, and Professor Tarr, of Cornell University. The oldest of them was but fifty-four,